


There's no place like you

by ThatwasJustaDream



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Community: 1_million_words, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 11:35:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatwasJustaDream/pseuds/ThatwasJustaDream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny regrets hesitating to share his new life with his old friends and his family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's no place like you

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "Say What?" Friday quote on the 1_million_words comm on LJ, the quote being: _"Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” -Terry Pratchett_

“Want a glass of water?” Danny asked.

“No,” Grace yawned from ear to ear, slumping a little more into him on the sofa.

“Want a punch in the nose?” He hugged her closer, kicking his socked feet up on his mom and dad’s coffee table, barely watching the Stooges movie flickering across the TV screen. The volume was down so low it was almost a silent movie.

“Uh… no,” she said it full of ‘duh.’

“How about some of the dessert we brought back from the restaurant?”

“Ohhh…” she groaned. “I think I’d rather have the punch in the nose.”

“I know what you mean…”

They were stuffed to their ears from four solid hours at Danny’s favorite Italian place, the first ‘must see’ of their trip home to New Jersey.

Danny’s parents had headed straight to bed the second they got back. Danny thought another hour or two in an upright position might be called for, to digest.

“Thank you for taking us to dinner,” Grace said and Danny smiled down at her, gave her a squish for being thoughtful enough to say it. 

“You’re welcome. _That_ is what the food in a red-sauce Italian place is supposed to taste like. Pretty damn good, huh?”

“So good,” Grace flopped back and showed off her rounded belly and they both laughed. “I’d have to run, like, a thousand miles a week if I lived here.”

“We’ll go to the city and walk it all off tomorrow, okay? I’ll take you to see the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building and…”

“’Toys ‘R Us’ has a life-sized, animatronic dinosaur,” Grace pointed out. 

“I will even brave Toys ‘R Us. And the M&M store, God help me.”

Danny headed her toward his sister’s old room when she started to nod off, and then walked around his old bedroom, unpacking a few more of his things.

It felt strange, setting his stuff in his dresser. It was odd, wearing long pajama pants and a sweatshirt. And it was so quiet in the house, the windows shut tight against the ten-degree wind chills, the glass shaking from the wind and the threat of a snowstorm overnight.

He looked at his cellphone as he set it on the nightstand, resisting the urge to pick it back up.

It had only been two days. There would be nine more. He didn’t want to seem…needy. Didn’t want to make Steve feel guilty, maybe. He absolutely would not call him now.

The phone rang right in front of him and Danny jumped, laughing, as he answered.

“Hi, babe. Got ESP? I was just thinking about you.”

“How’s the vacation going?” Steve’s voice sounded a little funny. Muffled. And distracted. The way Danny had felt all day today.

“It’s great.”

“But?”

“No but. We had a wonderful dinner with my parents and a bunch of old friends from the neighborhood. My buddies gave me shit, said I talk differently now like I have an accent or something.”

“Seriously?

“Yeah. As if. Gave me crap about my tan, too.”

“You have a tan?”

“Look, I may never achieve your level of Hawaiian Tropic goldenness, but I am _not_ as white as I used to be.”

“If it’s so great… why do you sound like someone just kicked your puppy?”

“You want the truth?”

“Yeah. I always want the truth.”

“Okay. I’m pissed at myself, and a little bit at you. That we didn’t have the nerve to push ahead with it. With you coming home with me.”

“You sure about that? Your friends….”

“Yeah, I’m sure. In an hour flat, all they’d see is Danny home to visit with his daughter and his hot boyfriend. Hell, the wives will be jealous of me. Maybe a few of the guys, too, for all I know.”

“Some of them… they may not be as open minded as you think.”

“Yeah? Well _screw_ them, then. Anyone who’s not okay with us… seriously, screw ‘em.”

“You’re sure? You really feel that way?”

“Very sure. I’m taking Grace to walk around town tomorrow, and all I can picture is you with us. I want to see what you look like with a red nose, in a winter coat, with snow in your hair. Hell, I wish you were here so much.”

“Really glad to hear it, D…”

The call cut off and Danny stared at the phone, very confused, until he heard a car door shut in the driveway and the sound of shoes crunching in the snow.

He made it to the front door in time to see Steve walking up, shoulders hunched and face flinching from the cold, a taxicab pulling away behind him.

“Get in here! Oh my God, you’re going to freeze to death…”

He was wearing jeans, a windbreaker and sandals. It looked like he’d thrown some things in the backpack over one shoulder and headed for the airport. Which was, Danny guessed, pretty much the case.

“I haven’t slept since you left,” Steve said, letting Danny shuck the jacket from him and get his arms around him, hands wandering under Steve’s shirt to warm his skin as he pulled him closer. “I probably could have survived it. But I realized I didn’t want to wait…”

He snuffled, a loud, wet sound, right before Danny kissed him and it made him smile – the snuffle, and Steve’s skin and his hair still cool to the touch, _him_ smelling of the sharp winter air. That was a first, ever. 

There were nine more days of them ahead – firsts ever.

“Your parents…” Steve reached in to murmur against Danny’s ear as Danny pulled him down the hall.

“My parents will love you. It’ll all be good. Just keep saying it, okay?”

“It’ll all be good,” He said it like he needed to hear it again, stopping when Danny broke out in a long, low laugh. “What?”

“I’m wishing sixteen year old me could see us making out in my bed in about ten minutes,” Danny explained and as exhausted as he looked, Steve had to snicker. 

Steve was out long before him, and in the dead silence of ‘close to midnight’ Danny realized New Jersey wasn’t home anymore. Neither was Hawaii. His parents were ‘home,’ and so was Grace. Home was his friends and his colleagues, and the man heavy in his arms, snoring softly against him – who he’d never spend eleven days apart from, fate willing.


End file.
